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Steven Nadler on Spinoza and Religious Fundamentalism

August 28, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Steven Nadler of the University of Wisconsin gives a lecture re. Spinoza on religion:

Watch this on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIYOC6RQ_LY

Around 6 minutes in, he discusses the claim that Spinoza is a pantheist. According to Nadler, there's no room in Spinoza's viewpoint for worshipful awe of nature; these are just a path to the irrational, harmful passions of hope and fear. Instead, we engage nature through scientific study; this is our means of communing with it.

Towards the end, he makes the point (from the Euthyphro; I think this maybe came up in our Camus episode but am not sure) that even if there's a god issuing commands, that won't be sufficient to generate morality, i.e. true normativity. It would just mean that a powerful force is commanding us to do something, leaving open the question whether that force or those commands are actually right.

The 2nd part of the video, i.e. the continuation of what I've posted here, gets more into his ethics, which will provide you with good preparation for our second discussion (episode 25, not yet posted) on Spinoza.

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  1. Conservative Christian Response to Pantheism | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    August 30, 2010 at 11:01 am

    […] Whether Spinoza should be technically considered a pantheist or atheist, pastor Mark Driscoll here does sum up how the resultant view is different than the idea of a personal God standing outside of and judging his creation: […]

    Reply
  2. Let’s Blog around « Blogaround « William K. Wolfrum Chronicles says:
    August 31, 2010 at 9:43 am

    […] Partially Examined Life: Should Spinoza be technically considered a pantheist or atheist? I’ll expect your reports in the […]

    Reply
  3. “The Universe is in Us:” Science and Religious Awe | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 1, 2010 at 12:26 am

    […] you watched the Stephen Nadler clip I posted, you’ll see what Spinoza, for one, has to say about this. Awe, for Spinoza, counts as an […]

    Reply
  4. Spinoza Roundtable | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 13, 2010 at 9:57 am

    […] Nader, who (at minute 23 or so) elaborates some of his positions already introduced in this video, e.g. that Spinoza is not really a […]

    Reply

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